Santa Goes Everywhere to Give a Lift to the Needy

He was nine days early, but Santa Claus came to town on Saturday anyway.

He came by hot air balloon to Los Angeles’ inner city, where about 30,000 people jammed the intersection of Crocker and 5th streets to see him help distribute 15,000 bags of toys and 25,000 bags of food collected by the Fred Jordan Mission.

He came by police car to the Union Mission on Skid Row, where 1,000 lined up to see him and receive second-hand clothing and used Christmas toys.

He came on foot to an athletic hall at USC, where he visited with 100 sick and disadvantaged children who came to receive gifts and listen to carols sung by members of the the university’s football team.

He arrived in a 50-year-old open-cockpit Stearman biplane at the Santa Monica Airport, where he distributed candy canes to 200 children at the Museum of Flying.

He came by Jeep to St. Thomas Catholic School in the Mid-City area, where he welcomed 638 children to a party organized by El Salvador’s Consul General to Los Angeles.

He landed by police helicopter at the Pacific Ford dealership in Long Beach, where he helped police and firefighters stage a gift and food drive for needy families.

He rolled up in a station wagon in Bell Gardens, where he handed wrapped gifts to about 1,500 American Indians.

And he glided up in a wheel-equipped sleigh pulled by two reindeer to Hollywood Boulevard, where he stepped over Eva Marie Saint’s sidewalk star and waved to onlookers from a whitewashed concrete winter wonderland set up by Scientologists.

“This could only happen in Hollywood,” said long-haired rock ‘n’ roll singer Raeph Hargrove, 25, of Athens, Ala., as he watched reindeers named Squirrel and Flop deliver a red-suited Girard Pinard. “Now I’ve seen everything.”

At the Fred Jordan Mission, a bearded Chet Beintema waved to children from the hot air balloon. “There are a lot of ups and downs in this business,” quipped Beintema, who worked the balloon’s gas jets.

Mission president Willie Jordan had expected 20,000 visitors to the annual block party, but perhaps 30,000 showed up. She said children who left when the mission ran out of toys, bags of groceries and 9,000 new blankets would receive tickets to come back and pick them up on Christmas Eve.

“I’m really overwhelmed by the number of people in need. It’s frightening,” Jordan said.

At the Union Mission, Reserve Los Angeles Police Officer Gary Hall, who works as an associate television producer, portrayed Santa as fellow Reserve Officer John Christie, a contractor, distributed 1,500 stuffed animals collected by students at Oakwood School in North Hollywood.

“The sad thing is you see some of the same kids here over and over, year after year,” said Hall, in his fifth year as a Skid Row Santa. “You hope their circumstances are going to improve. These kids are so grateful, even for a second-hand stuffed animal.”

In Bell Gardens, bearded Rod Blankenship handed wrapped gifts to Indian children like Jennifer Banagas, 2, a Seminole from Norwalk, and 10-year-old Michael George, a Nez Perce from Whittier.

About 35,000 American Indians in the Los Angeles area live beneath the poverty level, said event co-chairwoman Sallie Cuarezma, a Cherokee who lives in Gardena. “Santa is not in the Indian heritage, but the spirit of giving is an important part of our culture,” she said.

At the Salvadoran gathering, children received balloons and bags of toys. “There is nothing political about this,” said Rosa Maria Angulo, wife of Consul General Jose M. Angulo. “It’s just people who love each other. Christmas is sad now in El Salvador. It’s sad people are killing people.”

Nearby, 9-year-old Guadalupe Fabian waited patiently for her turn to see Santa, portrayed by a jolly, costumed Juan Carlos Arce. She said she did not have a Christmas list this year to whisper into his ear.

“For Christmas I’d just like peace in El Salvador and in Los Angeles,” Guadalupe said.